Captain's Corner: Go deep for red grouper

What's hot: Cold water temperatures have forced us to travel far for keeper red grouper — 110 feet and deeper. We caught eight good ones during a recent three-day outing. All were at least 25 inches, which is hefty for red grouper. Live and dead baits worked.

Tactics: The bite was productive but not frenzied. Fish for 15 minutes before looking for greener pastures. Quite often, a large red grouper took our offering after it saturated on the bottom for several minutes. Occasionally, we saw them on the sonar. It's a confidence-builder when you see fish swimming below, even if they are not hungry.

What else: Vermillion and lane snappers were available via small chunks of squid. Even a few scamp grouper were brought up. We also caught our limit of amberjack in the same depth. Normally, they are always hungry. But they took a little coaxing before taking our offerings. Patience is key this month.